Just this alone was decent practice. Having three elementals out at the same time that he was subtly channelling, to keep prepared for any possible attack, was a decent strain. It was a bit like that pressure you felt behind your eyes right before you had a big migraine coming on. But it was something that he had to figure out how to do sooner or later. And in this case, sooner was much preferable to later.
By now, Ashton would have liked to imbue a spell into the wisp already, but when he thought about it, he had a very late realisation. While he may know how to manipulate mana pretty well, and could change its state and do whatever was needed for enchanting or potion-making, Ashton didn't actually have any practical knowledge of spellcasting.
Sure, he knew some spell circles; he was forced to learn them as it may have helped during enchanting, but actual spellcasting? No, he never learned that part. And it wasn't the sort of thing that could be done purely through knowledge.
Different spells had different components, some visual, physical, material, or vocal. Ashton knew the visual and material portions of certain spells quite well, as they represented the actual spell circles and the literal materials that had to be used in the process. He had to study and understand the former, and prepare the latter for the Summoner. But as the Summoner wasn't exactly... human, in any way, shape, or form, the physical and vocal components were impossible for him, at least the way the Summoner did them. Of course, the actions required for the physical component done by someone with dozens more limbs than Ashton weren't exactly achievable for him, same with the vocal aspects.
So, at least for now, the only spells that Ashton could even imagine to make use of were ones that required only visual and material components, but most of those materials were currently inaccessible, and there were only a handful of basic spells that only required visual components.
And for that... the issue was that Ashton couldn't figure out how to form a spell circle quite yet. And as far as he knew, he basically had to form such a spell circle within the wisp's body to imbue a spell into them. But it was way harder than he thought to keep up such a complex shape.
However, there was something else that the wisp was good for, which he wanted to experiment with now. The wisp, a being of pure magic, could take in clean elemental magics from others to some degree, so that would be a good start in learning how to imbue proper spells. He just needed a few... test subjects.
Soon, Ashton encountered one of those test subjects. It was a small pack of 'Red Wolves'. Though, they looked a bit different to how Ashton was used to seeing them before. In the wilderness of the other world, they were these deeply feral, massive creatures that perfectly represented the image of a 'wolf'. Their fur was a dark, almost black, red that looked like they were soaked in blood.
But the pack that Ashton was seeing now? They were a bit smaller and weirdly looked like they had been groomed just a few days ago. Rather than wolves, they seemed more like stray dogs.
Of course, they were very clearly still 'Red Wolves', that much was obvious. That soft, blood-red glow in their eyes was proof for that. But it was still an unexpected change to these monsters.
The pack of four ran at Ashton the moment they saw him, snarling and growling as they did, showing their sharp teeth that still had flesh and garbage stuck in them.
But Ashton reacted just as fast. He pulled a flame from the lantern and quickly moved it in front of him. Out of all the elements, fire was the most intimidating. Most beings either knew instinctively or out of experience that they had to stay away from fire. And while monsters were forced to fight, that wasn't enough to make them go beyond their instincts. And animalistic monsters often followed such instincts more than humanoids.
They backed off at the sight of the flames, waiting for the opportunity to attack. But at the same time as he moved the flames back and forth, Ashton had the wisp move forward. He had to move both hands to manipulate two of the elementals at once right now, and he couldn't quite afford to just stand back and do nothing but flail his arms around. He had to be able to use his staff, just in case.
So, Ashton brought the flames and the wisp together. Almost immediately, as though it had been waiting for it, the wisp absorbed the magical flames, taking on a red hot glow. The slight mist that had been surrounding it this whole time was now dark red fire.
Almost immediately, channelling the two elementals together became much easier, not just in terms of the physical action Ashton needed to do, but also the mental strain.
Ashton waved his hand around, directing the flaming wisp around. While the red wolves were still hesitant to attack, Ashton took the initiative, slamming the wisp into the closest wolf.
The wisp's blunt impact combined with the explosion of the salamander's flame, and the red wolf was thrown away with a whimper. It tried to land, but one of its legs buckled. Its fur had also just caught on fire, melting all over its body. The flames soon died down, but it was still engulfed in flames for a moment.
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By the time the flames went out, Ashton had already directed the wisp at the next wolf, slamming them into the front of its snout. Half of its face was singed off almost immediately as the forceful impact broke its jaw and cracked some teeth out of its skull.
Though it whimpered, Ashton quickly moved on to the next red wolf, spinning his staff around with one hand to build momentum, quickly fending off the wolf that was currently lunging at him. He hit the side of its body, cracking its ribs, before turning the staff around and striking directly at its spine. While the monster fell down, Ashton doubled-up on the wolf's spine with the wisp, finishing it off while its neck was broken.
[You have killed a [Red Wolf]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 17 Coins]
With one of their pack fallen, the other wolves reacted quickly. They barked and howled, even the one with some teeth knocked out and its jaw broken. But no matter how much they wanted to, they couldn't overcome Ashton.
He hit them with the staff, crushed their bones with the wisp, singed their fur and roasted their flesh with the salamander, and wiped out this small pack.
[Skill | Aether Sensitivity - Level 3 -> Aether Sensitivity - Level 4]
[Skill | Channel - Level 5 -> Channel - Level 6]
[Contract | Lesser Salamander - Level 3 -> Lesser Salamander - Level 4]
"Okay, good start," Ashton smiled, approaching the bodies of the red wolves. He cut off bits of their fur and pulled out some claws and teeth. They could all be used as ingredients for potions or items, or for enhancing certain types of weapons. Of course, Ashton also extracted their magic stones and placed them into a new small plastic bag.
This only took a few minutes for Ashton, but red wolf materials were too good to just leave behind. He could justify not collecting things from kobolds or goblins right now, considering the situation, but red wolves? No way would he let up that chance.
But the moment Ashton was ready to move on, he did. And rather than just walking through town, he started jogging. Out of all of his stats, his 'resilience' was the lowest, and things like one's stamina were collected under that stat. Sure, it was at '10', which was still almost 50% higher than what he started out with, but compared to his other stats, which were closer to doubling compared to his original, it was a bit lacklustre.
As he moved through town, Ashton spotted a few more groups of monsters, though he wanted to try his best to avoid them unless he couldn't avoid it or he hadn't encountered them here before.
Or, well, unless they were extremely useful or rare. He came by two more red slimes - one of them was tearing apart a car, while the other was currently eating through the metallic back door of a restaurant. The slime that he had gathered before kept almost eating through the simple plastic bottles, so he had to keep moving it from bottle to bottle.
Once he had some time and the tools for it, he wanted to see if he could turn some glass bottles into ampoules with the help of the salamander, but that was something to worry about later.
Ashton continued jogging, at times even sprinting momentarily. With his '14' speed, he was moving way faster than he normally would be able to. It was still far slower than the max he was used to, but if he tried to fully sprint with the proper technique, he could probably win some world records by now. Though, once others got their classes and started levelling up, especially with physical classes and the proper skills, Ashton would fall behind in physical capabilities. So he should just enjoy this feeling for now, being the only one that could do these things here.
On the way, he spotted a few more monsters, confirming just the variety of things that were scuttering around. For one, all the scavenger species that now existed with that massive amount of corpses laying around.
Carrion crows; not the normal one that was seeing all over the UK even before this, but rather a type of extremely aggressive corvid about three or four times the size of normal crows. They had a single large eye in the centre of their head, and their strong beaks folded open into three rather than two, with sharp teeth in there that were just perfect for tearing away any and all flesh.
Inside of the corpses, small monsters were gathering as well. Insects, specifically. Worms, beetles, fly larvae - they were all incredibly useful ingredients.
For example, the bone beetles. Not only did they break down bones into small dust that was great fertiliser, but they were stock full with magic and, if you weren't squeamish about what they ate, were a great source of nutrients.
Also, the best part about these monsters was that they weren't as aggressive as others, since they had a different purpose to the red wolves, goblins, orcs, ratmen, or all the other monsters roaming around here. While those were brought here to kill anything they saw, scavengers were brought here to clean up those kills.
It also meant that they were a bit easier to kill, though they barely brought in any coins. The insects didn't give any, just a notification that they died, and that was it. Even so, when he spotted a few, he dropped down and gathered them.
At some point, the backpacker even tried stopping him, showing the community post about the school, but Ashton didn't quite know what to say. He had turned into a compulsive gatherer.
"Sorry, I'll make sure to hurry up. I can gather up these guys later, as well."
Ashton kept on running, trying to make up for the time that he lost.
He ran and ran, killed some monsters that he had no choice but to. Sometimes he used the salamander's flames alone, sometimes he combined it with the wisp, or just used the wisp as it was. He also made sure to use the undine's water-whip as much as he could whenever it seemed useful. This led to the undine reaching level 4, the salamander level 5, and the wisp also seemed at the brink of levelling up once more.
But before long, just two hours after he left, Ashton felt like he was getting close. Sam made sure to remind him of the route before he headed out. He turned around the corner. The primary school was at the end of the road. But right in front of it, a group of monsters had settled.
At least five orcs, and a whole bunch of goblins. They were practically camping out in front of the school's gates, as though they were waiting.
They had a few corpses laying in front of them. The orcs were ripping the people apart, trying to cook them over fire.
"They realised that if they stay here, people will come and try to save the kids..." Ashton stared forward, grinding his teeth together. His words barely left his mouth as he spoke, and then he looked back at the elementals, "You guys ready? We've got some hunting to do ourselves."
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